Subject
Shade's "Mon Blon" (in PF) and Shelley's "Mont Blanc"
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In Canto III, line 783, Mrs. Z mentions a poem by Shade about
*Mon Blon*. I have always assumed, esp. given the adjacent
reference to the Matterhorn, that Shade is transcribing
her pronunciation of the French mountain Mont Blanc. (Kinbote
confirms the Mont Blanc connection in C782.)
If so, has anyone thought of the connection
with Percy Shelley's poem "Mont Blanc"? That poem, as I read
it, has passages that echo Shade's own concerns. Here's a
bit of it:
One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings
Now float above thy darkness, and now rest
Where that or thou art no unbidden guest,
In the still cave of the witch Poesy,
Seeking among the shadows that 'pass by 45
Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee,
Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast
From which they fled recalls them, thou art there!
3
Some say that glean-is of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber, 50
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
Of those who wake and live. I look on high;
Has some unknown omnipotence unfurled
The veil of life and death? or do I lie
In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep 55
Spread far around and inaccessibly
Its circles?
Matthew Roth
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*Mon Blon*. I have always assumed, esp. given the adjacent
reference to the Matterhorn, that Shade is transcribing
her pronunciation of the French mountain Mont Blanc. (Kinbote
confirms the Mont Blanc connection in C782.)
If so, has anyone thought of the connection
with Percy Shelley's poem "Mont Blanc"? That poem, as I read
it, has passages that echo Shade's own concerns. Here's a
bit of it:
One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings
Now float above thy darkness, and now rest
Where that or thou art no unbidden guest,
In the still cave of the witch Poesy,
Seeking among the shadows that 'pass by 45
Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee,
Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast
From which they fled recalls them, thou art there!
3
Some say that glean-is of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber, 50
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
Of those who wake and live. I look on high;
Has some unknown omnipotence unfurled
The veil of life and death? or do I lie
In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep 55
Spread far around and inaccessibly
Its circles?
Matthew Roth
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm